A Sea-Me-We-5 Alternative In the Works?

Sunil Tagare, the protagonist who helped drive the original FLAG effort that disrupted the global submarine cable industry back in the '90s, is at it again. He has invited carriers to attend the first investors meeting and DGM for the 'Tagare Cable' in Dubai on September 11-13. The Singapore-France system would take on the proposed Sea-Me-We-5 cable, the details of which have been evolving more politically than economically of late.

Taking aim at the business model itself, he hopes to introduce the concept of a submarine cable 'tower', in which common infrastructure is shared by participating carriers and there are no branching penalties. But most of all, Tagare is looking to bring in carriers left out of the Sea-Me-We-5 plans in some way and break the hold of the large Chinese operators he says are now controlling that effort. While the endpoints are set, the cable would stop off at lots of landing stations along the way, without favoritism.

What has to happen to get Tagare's effort off the ground? Carriers with bandwidth needs along the route will need to rally behind it and sign the MOU that will be available at the Dubai meeting early next month. I guess we'll see soon enough if there is enough discontent out there to bring about a shakeup.